Insomniacs Anonymous Part 1: Karkat (1)
by supermagicwater
Summary: Karkat becomes a member of Insomniacs Anonymous, meets some new people, and accidentally asks someone out. Each part will have a different character perspective. Human!stuck.


I hated this time of night. Or morning? I couldn't fucking tell. It was dark, so it's night. All that matters was that it was dark, it had been dark for a while, and I was still awake. Every god damn night, I was awake.

Every night I would wander the streets, just trying to get some exercise, hoping the physical effort will tire me out. No such fucking luck. I'd get to bed and somehow be even more alert and awake then I was when I left.

You know what? I felt like a ghost. A fucking ghost watching all the living people pass me on the street. All the smiling, happy people, probably walking home to sleep on their nice, comfy beds, to dream about their nice, comfy lives.

Fuck people. Especially this one guy I saw. Fucking taping his stupid sign on this stupid ass bakery window. The hell was he doing in there anyway? The bakery was closed, dumb ass.

"Hello!" he fucking said, stepping out of the bakery. This guy was radiating so much fucking sunshine, one in the morning was starting to feel like noon.

"Are you here for the meeting tonight? Or...this morning, I guess?"

"Meeting for what?"

"Insomniacs Anonymous. It's for people who have trouble sleeping and want to get at the root of their problems, or for people who just have nothing else to do. We meet every other day at 1:00 am, here in the back room of my grandma's bakery, Betty's Baked Goods."

"I don't really see myself as an insomniac though. I'm more of an..." I tried to think of a another word that fit my problem, but I came up short. "...oh shit, I am an insomniac."

"Come on in then! The first step is acceptance, and you've already got that down. Anyway, we really need more people, and if you don't like it, you don't have to come again."

I followed Sunshine Man (that was such a poor fucking nickname. I am so sorry. Lack of sleep had hindered my ability to come up with good insults) into the darkened bakery. He led me to a dimly lit hallway and through a door.

The room had a lone light bulb hanging in the middle of the room. It looked like a place this man could've murder me, and I should have been afraid of him if it weren't for the fact that death would have allowed me for some much needed sleepy time.

There was baking ingredients along the shelves on the wall, with a circle of chairs in the middle of the room. Two of them were already occupied by some guys. One of them was wearing black and grey polka dot pyjamas, and had white powder on his face.

...Oh my god. The white powder was flour. He had flour on his face. This guy was swiping flour from the shelves and eating it. Holy shit. What a fucking clown.

And then there was this other guy, looking so nonchalant in his...3D glasses. I kid you not. 3D fucking glasses. In the middle of the night. Nowhere near a cinema. In a fucking bakery. Between the dude in pyjamas eating flour and the guy with the pseudo 3D sunglasses, it was like a meeting place for freaks.

Fuck it. There was nothing else I could have been doing at 1 am. I took my chances and sat next to the Back to the Future minion, keeping sure to avoid eye contact with the flour eater.

"I think we'll just wait a bit for the other regulars, and then we can get started." Sunshine Man looked at me and said, "My name is John, by the way. Oh, and there's the people we were waiting for. Welcome guys! Take a seat and let's get this show on the road." A guy rolled in on his wheelchair and sat next to the pyjama wearing creep as a girl sat down beside me.

John took a swig of his coffee mug and sat down in the circle of chairs. "Okay! Welcome everyone! As you can see, we have someone new to our little group, so hopefully you'll be as accepting to him as you want others to be accepting of you. Now, let's do as we did last time and go around the circle, introducing yourself and saying why you are here. We'll start with...you. Our new member."

They were all looking at me. Shiiiiit. "My name is Karkat Van-"

"No last names please. It sort of goes with being anonymous and all."

"Okay. My name is Karkat and I am an...insomniac?" They clapped for me, probably out of pity, and they waited for me to say more. I had to say something that wouldn't make me appear as lame as I felt. "I am an insomniac because I can't sleep." Good fucking job, Karkat, the breakthrough discovery of the day. "I mean, I can't sleep because...I just can't." So fucking deep. A regular fucking philosopher up in this place. They were probably so glad, so fucking thankful, I could impart my wisdom onto them.

"Great start, Karkat. Now, what about the gentleman with the kicking 3D glasses beside you?"

"You know my name already, John."

"Yes, but we've got to stick to some sort of routine Sol- I mean - unnamed individual."

"Fine, alright. My name is Sollux. I am an insomniac because my dead girlfriend visits me in my dreams, and my guilt for her keeps me from sleeping." Holy shit. How could he tell strangers something like that, when all I could say was "I can't sleep because I can't sleep"? I couldn't even tell if he was sad because of his stupid fucking glasses. He sounded sort of accepting of it, which made it even worse. I should have patted his arm or something, just to let him know someone cared. Instead, I sat there, like the unfeeling loser I am.

They continued going around the circle like this fucking bombshell didn't happen. Next was the flour faced pyjama man.

He didn't say anything. He just sat there and smiled. Just fucking smiled with flour caked around his mouth. He stared at John, and just kept on smiling.

So we moved on to the guy beside him.

"Um, hi. I'm Tavros, and I'm an insomniac. I get phantom pains under my knee cap, I guess where my leg was amputated? It's particularly bad when I'm about to sleep, so I, uh, have trouble sleeping."

Last to go was the girl beside me.

"Hey, my name's Vriska and I really don't know why I keep coming here. Like, yeah, I can't sleep, but I feel like I have better things to do with my time. Most of them involving not being here."

"Why are you here then?" asked John. Vriska shrugged and stayed silent.

"Well, anyway, next time we meet, maybe we'll be more comfortable with each other and share a little more about ourselves. What I'm hoping for is to make a community where we can openly share our worries and problems. The weight of them may lift off our shoulders, and we might finally be able to sleep with clear heads. Time's about up, so hopefully I'll being seeing your faces (and maybe some new ones) next time we meet!" John finished speaking as we got up from the chairs and headed toward the door.

I still felt like I should say something to Sollux, so I caught up with him outside of the bakery.

"Hey, um, Sollux?" Fuck. I had no clue of what to say to him. Up close, he was sort of intimidating. Sort of...hot. In an insulting kind of way, of course.

"What's up?" He said, with a noticeable lisp. It was infuriatingly adorable.

"Uh..." I didn't think this far into the conversation. I should have thought this far ahead. "Are you okay? I mean, uh, do you want to hang out or something?"

...I fucking asked him out. I wanted to know how he was, not if he was interested in me. Fuuuuuuuuck.

"Sure."


End file.
